MUI welcomes Seth Schindler

15 May 2018

Seth joined the University of Manchester in February 2018 as a Senior Lecturer in Urban Development and Transformation at the Global Development Institute.

Seth's research is focused on large-scale urban and regional transformation initiatives that integrate cities into transnational urban systems. These planning schemes are made possible by the centralization of urban politics and the reassertion of national governments over urban processes. In many cases, planners seek to design territory that can be ‘plugged in’ to global production and trade networks. In this context, Seth’s research has two primary objectives. First, he seeks to understand how ordinary cities are impacted by their rapid incorporation into global production and trade networks. Second, the design of market-oriented territories is a response to the failure of neoliberal reforms to foster export-driven economic growth. While deindustrialization is associated with urban decline in the OECD, economists have recently shown that deindustrialization is more severe in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Seth focuses on cities in the global South that have experienced significant deindustrialization, and he seeks to determine how firms, governments and labourers have adapted to the decline of manufacturing.

Seth’s research has appeared in leading urban studies journals such as the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Urban Studies, Urban Geography, Antipode, Environment and Planning A and City. His research is currently funded by the Regional Studies Association, the British Academy and the Newton Fund.

Seth has recently been awarded a Newton Fund-British Academy grant to research urbanization in Turkey and we are expecting to be able to announce another grant success in the next few weeks!

Finally, at the Development Studies Association Conference 2018, taking place in Manchester from 27-29 June, Seth is organising two sessions on deindustrialisation in developing countries that will include scholars from Tanzania, Ghana, Turkey, India and Brazil.